On Dec. 13, 1946, Darby's body was found in his apartment in Hollywood, CA. He was nude and had been tied up, and the back of his skull had been caved in. A heavy ashtray near the body was determined to have been the murder weapon. Later that day in Merced, CA--about 250 miles away--a 21-year-old psychiatric technician at a Los Angeles veterans hospital, Leon Douglas, was arrested while driving Darby's car. He was returned to Los Angeles and interrogated, and admitted that he had hit Darby with the ashtray after an argument, but claimed that he didn't realize he had killed him. He was charged with first-degree murder, tried and convicted.
